Reply to Incentives to Keep Teachers

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are already plenty of incentives. The problem is the grass is always greener, but at least there's no shortage of new teachers to fill in for the unhappy ones who leave.[/quote]

Exactly.  They get really good benefits and there are housing programs already.  And after the first few years the pay is decent to good for a ten month employee and they get tuition benefits for a masters or PhD.  [/quote]

And yet we can’t keep teachers in the classroom. Here we are commenting on a thread about how to incentivize people to stay in the profession.

TEACHERS know that the benefits aren’t worth the agony, but DCUM is here to tell teachers that their jobs are amazing. We’ll keep pretending that the teacher shortage isn’t a thing.

[/quote]
I am an MCPS employee. I know the benefits are great and my pay is not bad. I am a few years away from retiring with my full pension and I am leaving at the end of the school year. The stress and constant changes and demands are no longer worth it. I handed in my retirement papers and feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. [/quote]

Congratulations! I took 3 years off when my children were younger. The stress, fatigue, and anxiety melted away. I forgot how bad it was, which is why I came back. I won’t be making it much longer and I’ll be kissing full pension goodbye. I don’t care. It isn’t worth my health and happiness.

The posters who love to remind us about the amazing benefits haven’t actually tried the job. The benefits aren’t worth it. At all. [/quote]

Teaching isn't the only difficult job in the county.  Lots of difficult jobs in social service for example.  But, you work 10 months, we work 12 months.  You get a pension, we don't.  You get far better health care than we do, etc.  So, yup, try changing jobs to what others do.[/quote]

Do you work 65-70 hours per week? Teachers do, and that is why they are getting out. The pension isn't enough because the pay isn't enough. [/quote]

I’m not PP, but, yes, I work 65-70 hours a week. I don’t get paid overtime. I only get 7 federal holidays. I get paged and work on my days off, which are limited. I don’t get good healtcare coverage from my work, but it’s not bad. This is standard in technology. However, I am paid way more than teachers in my present job. That said, at the beginning of my career, I worked even over 100 hours a week and even 36 straight hours before, and I got paid only barely more than my wife, who was a teacher. She’s no longer teaching, but still in the general field. She makes more, but not much more than if she had remained a teacher.[/quote]

It seems you were in a pretty crummy job situation. What made you stay? For anyone who counters with “but I also do XYZ…”  why do you stay in your job that also isn’t great. These are honest questions. All jobs have crappy parts to them but not every career has shortages of people to take those jobs. So if you are in one of the jobs, why do you stay? That could help answer the teacher retention question.[/quote]

I stay because I am a single parent with two kids going to college in the next few years. I missed the window to leave and now I'm stuck.[/quote]

I don't get why having high schoolers means you can't get a different job.[/quote]

It's kind of a great job that has summers off, unlimited sick leave, not to mention a pension![/quote]

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